


Shadow on the moonlit night

by viveriveniversumvivusvici55



Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Farmer Eve - Freeform, Gen, Happy belated Halloween, Spooky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 14:41:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21272855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viveriveniversumvivusvici55/pseuds/viveriveniversumvivusvici55
Summary: There are frightening things in the forest. Eve finds one. Shane finds her.





	Shadow on the moonlit night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreaminglestrade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreaminglestrade/gifts).

> For my favourite beta as a belated Halloween gift. For more Stardew Valley gothic, go check her out!

Shane is just barely on the edge of tipsy when there is pounding on his window. It’s not hard enough to break the glass - it seems to be hitting the frame and wall around the window - but it is fast, with a touch of panic to it. He sets down the can he’s working on, frowning, and looks at the clock. 10pm. Why on earth is anyone pounding on  _ his  _ window (and not the front door) at this time of night? He grumbles, tugs his t-shirt down from where it had lifted up over his belly, and pulls the curtains back. 

...it’s Eve. Her face is sheet white, her eyes wide with terror, and there is...blood dripping down her arm. In a second, Shane’s tipsiness has faded to give way to concern and he fiddles with the lock of his window before practically tearing the window open. “Yoba, what happened to you?” 

She fiddles anxiously for a moment at the door and Shane does his very best not to sigh loudly. He fails as he steps aside. “Just get in!”

She proceeds to haul ass inside, hitting her boot on the window ledge, and he helps pull her in. They pull the window shut in unison, and Eve lets out a breath, bending forward and resting her hands on her knees. Her chest is heaving with breath, and a trail of blood drips down her sleeve and onto an empty can lying on the carpet. 

Without saying anything, Shane heads to the bathroom to find the first aid kit. She is sitting on his bed when he returns, cupping the wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding. He sits down next to her and silently starts cleaning it up. Eve tugs her shirt out of the way so he can get at it.

It’s...claw marks. Something with at least four very distinct fingers grabbed at her arm at an angle and proceeds to rip the skin apart. Shane makes a hissing noise through his teeth and starts dabbing it clean. “What happened?”

She grimaces with the pain and her eyes flash up to him for a moment. She takes a moment to answer, which Shane uses to make sure that nothing has gotten into the wound. “Wolf,” she says softly. “There was a wolf prowling around the coop. I tried to scare it off.”

Part of him wants to say that this definitely was not a wolf - he has seen dog bites and this is  _ not _ a dog bite. However, there’s something about her face, the way she still looks scared, that makes him very much not want to know. “Have you had your shots?” He decides to ask instead.

Eve nods and Shane pulls out the butterfly closures. He’s fairly certain that they aren’t deep enough to require stitches, but he’s still going to advise her to go talk to Harvey and make sure it’s okay. Doing his best to remember the first aid course he took - the one good thing that came out of Joja - he places the butterflies in the right spot, presses gauze overtop, and begins winding a bandage over it to keep it all in place. 

“There.”

She checks it over for a moment and smiles, tugging her shirt sleeve over it. “Thank you.”

As much as he wants her out of his room, he feels compelled to ask, “You want to stay the night here?”

She blinks at him in surprise - which, no small wonder, he hasn’t exactly been the friendliest of people to her - and considers the offer. She returns the question. “Would you walk me back if I said no?”

He nods. That does mean that he’d be walking back home alone, but he can live with that. “I’d prefer it if you stayed. Wolves, you know.”

_ Or whatever it was that I don’t want to believe got you. _

That seems to make the decision for her and Eve nods. He doesn’t quite smile - it sits in his eyes if anything - and stands up. “I’ll go talk to Marnie. I’ll show you the couch.” Manners would normally dictate that she takes his bed while he takes the couch, but she’s been remarkably good at not saying anything about the state of his room. He doesn’t want to expose her to his filth any longer than necessary. 

“Thank you.” She stands up, a hand pressed over her arm. He does offer her some of the ibuprofen he keeps by his bed. She takes the pills dry. 

Marnie is, even half asleep, a completely gracious host and offers Eve blankets and pillows on the couch. As Shane heads back to bed, he can hear Marnie asking Eve questions and checking over the bandages on her arm. He even hears a faint compliment about how well he had bandaged Eve’s arm. 

Even so, he finds himself lying in bed, beer forgotten, and staring up at the ceiling. He’s always disregarding the sounds of the forest outside as just part of the Valley or something that he was imagining in his more inebriated moments. Now, though, he hears the strange howling in the distance - something not quite a wolf, but something...angrier.

He doesn’t believe in monsters. He only believes in those things that he can see, hear, and touch. The scientific method has held true for centuries and that is what he trusts. Monsters aren’t real - it is just people who are cruel or things in nature that we don’t understand yet.

But that doesn’t stop the hair on the back of his neck from rising, or how he double checks the lock on the window.

Or how he can’t stop imagining something with long spindly fingers chasing Eve from her farm as fast as her legs can carry her.


End file.
